Cockatoo Variations!

The Cockatoo dispenser is a part of the "Kooky Zoo" series… and one of my favorites, so it seems natural to start with this variation. The Cockatoo can be found with the following:

* Non-Footed (NF) and footed stems.
* Made in Austria (country of manufacture) stems.
* 3.9 Patent and No-Patent Number (which are 3.9 Patent) stems.
* Head colors: Medium blue, dark blue, yellow, green, and red.
* Beak colors: Yellow, red, and peach.
* Stem colors: Medium blue, dark blue, red, green, and yellow.
* Inner Sleeve colors - White, yellow, transparent yellow, cream, and pink.
* On all Cockatoos, the top feather tuft is always red... sometimes they *point* up, sometimes they *point* down... but always red in color.

Head	Beak
Med. Blue	Red
Dark Blue	Red
Med. Blue	Yellow
Dark Blue	Yellow
Yellow	Red
Green	Yellow
Green	Red
Green	Peach
Red	Yellow

There are nine distinct variations on the Cockatoo with regards to the head and beak color combinations. The color combinations are shown in the chart on the right.

The Green Headed / Peach Beaked combination is a very hard to find variation.

The Red Headed / Yellow Beaked combination is quite rare. According to John LaSpina, he knows of only seven of these dispensers. We here at the McPEZ Kooky Zoo are very fortunate to be one of these seven people!

And here is a picture of our Red-Headed Cockatoo! We have nicknamed this cockatoo "Lucy" after one of the most famous *red heads*. Everytime I look at this cockatoo... I hear Ricky screaming "Ohhhh, Lucy!" ;-)

I have only found a Red Head Cockatoo once in the last five years of searching eBay. Of course, I just had to have it!

It is interesting to note that the Red Headed Cockatoo is available only on footed stems. On ours, the stem is a 3.9 Patent, Made in Austria, thick footed stem… How cool is that… a 3.9 with *thick* feet!

Here is our newest cockatoo... A Peach Beak! A cool tidbit about this color combination is that on most of the peach beaked cockatoos, the stem is a "Rose" or "Salmon" color. Our Peach Beak is on a 3.9, No Patent, Made in Austria, IMC 8 stem.

The pictures above show the two different "blue" head colors on a cockatoo. On the left is the Medium Blue head. Pictured on the right is the Dark Blue head.

LOOK! A Translucent stemmed Cockatoo!

This is a Great Test dispenser! We purchased this dispenser from David Welch. This cockatoo has the Medium Blue Head... with a fully translucent stem, inner sleeve, and candy button. According to what we have heard, this translucent stem/inner/candy button combination was a part of a very small test set made by PEZ. The test set was made up of eight (8) dispensers, with two of the them being a footed and non-footed Cockatoo. I have heard from reliable sources (who got their info first hand from Johann Patek) that PEZ only made six (6) sets of these test dispensers with the translucent parts.

PEZ molded a good quantity of their early regulars with yellow translucent stems, so this part of the *scheme* had already been used. To the best of my knowledge, PEZ never did produce any dispensers with translucent candy buttons. When we first received this dispenser, it was the first time that we had ever seen a clearly translucent inner sleeve. However, just a couple of weeks later, we were successful on a bid for what appeared to be a common yellow-headed Cockatoo. When this Cockatoo arrived, we discovered that the inner sleeve on this dispenser was *exactly* like this test piece! Very Cool! So, it looks like some of these "test" translucent parts did indeed find their way onto dispensers that were sold in retail.

Here is a close-up of the translucent candy button.

This is a picture of the Patent/Made In molding.

Another interesting variation on the Cockatoo head is the "Eric Pyramid Nub". This is a small, raised pyramid shape that can be found near the lower side of the Cockatoo's head… right under, and forward of the hinge pivot hole.

View of the "Eric Pyramid Nub"

Another view - Different Angle